Myself and Mr Field pictured at the Charisma Gold Cup
(20 October 1984)
Entry based on The Von Hell Diaries: Saturday 20 October 1984
I can't honestly say I'm a fan of horse racing: it may be the sport of kings, but it's not the sport of punks.
Nevertheless, it was the Charisma Gold Cup [1] and so I headed off with my becaped friend Mr Field [2] to the races at Kempton Park wearing a top hat and a new tartan winter coat. Decided also to wear clown-white face makeup just to amuse the punters.
Bumped into Holly and Chief [3] at Richmond station. The latter really looked the part: unfortunately, the insider's tip that he gave me turned out to be a less than winning piece of information. But, as he explained when the horse finally trotted over the line, there's no such thing as a cert.
Steve Weltman [4] was also dressed to the nines, but he looked a little stiff and uncomfortable. Amusingly, he wouldn't speak with me and Kirk and I don't think he even wanted to be seen with us. And so we headed to the enclosure area where we had drinks with Roddy Forrest [5] and flirted with his very attractive wife, Fiona, who seemed like a lot of fun (and an Aquarian too).
Lamb chops for lunch - and lots of wine (drunk straight from the bottle). Didn't meet any actual jockeys, but the Radio 1 disc jockey Mike Read was hanging around looking a bit twatish.
Afterwards, whilst Kirk got into an argument with a drunken Tory MP, I met a woman wearing a very nice white jacket and red stockings who insisted on giving me a hug and a kiss and even slipped me her phone number before leaving with her ex-boyfriend (who I believe was Glen Colson) [6].
Notes
[1] Sponsored by Charisma Records, the Charisma Gold Cup was a three-mile handicap chase and formed the centrepiece of Kempton's opening jumps fixture. The race continued after Virgin acquired Charisma (in 1983) and was run in Tony Stratton Smith's memory following his death (in 1987) for several years.
[2] I have mentioned my friend Kirk Field in several posts on Torpedo the Ark: click here.
[3] Holly Fogg was the Charisma Records secretary; Chief was the Charisma fixer who used to operate out of the mail room at 90, Wardour Street.
[4] Steve Weltman was the MD at Charisma Records.
[5] Roddy Forrest was the product manager at Charisma Records.
[6] Glen Colson was an interesting figure working within the music business for many years. I might be mistaken, but I think the young woman in the red stockings was Gillian Gould.
